Entries Tagged as facebook demographics

Is Facebook a viable advertising platform? Are Facebook Ads effective?

As search engine marketers, we find ourselves when talking about any new ad platform asking: will it be effective? Given the popularity and mass adoption of Facebook, it is logical that there are many conversations about the effectiveness of Facebook Ads. Here is how we’ve focused on this conversation.

Two Common Scenarios

When evaluating Facebook ads’ effectiveness, we consider two common scenarios for people or businesses considering Facebook as an advertising platform:

1. I have a Facebook Page and I want more fans.
2. I have a website and I want more traffic.

In regards to #1 the clear answer is: Yes, for driving your desired conversions (fans), Facebook will be the most effective advertising platform.

#2 has a slightly more complex answer. The effectiveness of Facebook ads depends on your target demographic. Facebook is no longer the home of teens, it’s the home of everyone! From teens to men and women in their later 50s, they are on Facebook. You can target on city, education, workplace, language and personal interests! It’s hard to imagine a demographic that couldn’t be effective.

Facebook ads can lead a visitor from one page on the site to your brand or organization’s Facebook page. Or an ad can lead them from a page to an external website. These internal and external ads are both effective and can bring about an effective return on your investment.

Two Questions for Facebook Ads

The greatest question with any advertising campaign is: what is your objective? This will greatly influence the direction your Facebook ad campaigns will take.

• Are you looking to build a community?
• Are you looking to build loyalty?
• Is there another objective in mind?

The next question is: who are you trying to reach?

As we mentioned before, Facebook allows for very specific ad targeting:

• Country
• State
• City
• Education
• Relationship status; dating, engaged, married
• Age
• Gender
• Workplace
• Personal interests: from hobbies to actors to competitors of your company.

Will My Facebook Ads Be Effective?

Once you have these questions truthfully answered and a campaign set up to match it, there’s nothing that should hold your Facebook ads from being effective. If your objectives match your targeting, we believe you can find success in Facebook advertising.

What’s your story in regards to Facebook ads and their effectiveness? Have you seen great results, or are still trying to figure out how to improve your ads? Leave us a comment, we would love to hear what others have to say about their experience with Facebook advertising!

There has been a lot of chatter on the web recently about how Google better watch out, because Facebook ads are gaining on them.   While it may be fact that Facebook is experiencing a higher percentage of growth than Google (naturally, since Google has already reached critical mass, and Facebook had minimal revenue in 2008), the reports of Facebook being the next “Google Killer” are downright irresponsible.

While I cannot definitively say that no advertisers have had positive experiences with Facebook (Shoemoney’s Facebook Ads article from earlier this year is still the best example of success that I have read to date), I can say that I have had poor experiences thus far with Facebook advertising.  I’m embarrassed by how bad they performed!

As a performance oriented marketer who tends to look at campaigns from a direct response point of view, my results from an August 2009 campaign were absolutely putrid.  Even removing my direct response glasses and putting on a “brand hat” – the results were about as poor as they get.

In fact, I’m so embarrassed by my results that I’m almost ashamed to show them in public… but in the spirit of transparency, they will be shared at the end of this post.

However, I would first prefer to share what I have learned from my recent foray into Facebook ads:

• Be Specific With Your Targeting – Demographic targeting is your friend!  Find your target market and make sure you only advertise to them.

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